Understanding things, and stuff, in general - particularly fundamentals on which much else is built.

Through my passion for understanding things, I have come to stand up strongly for the ideology of Voluntaryism - which asserts that all human interactions should be voluntary, that the initiation of force or violation of individual negative/self-ownership rights should not be tolerated. I am passionate, only about truth, knowledge, understanding - philosophy in general. That passion therefore shines through to my understanding of specific topics(for example politics and health), though I am not directly invested/passionate in my own thoughts/theories - only in the pursuit of knowledge/understanding in general.

If homeopathy was any good, they could show it with at least one peer reviewed study. I don't think there have been any clinical trials showing statistically significant benefits of homeopathy relative to placebo(and there have been studies and trials)..

"If survival and reproduction were the sole tenants of life, then I don't see a need for evolution. Life could have stayed as simple prokaryotes and been happy surviving and reproducing for eternity."

It is not about need, it's just about what is. What is the 'need' for life in the first place? Life is just something that happened, mutation is just something that happened, speciation is just something that happened... Life is just the result of some random chemical reactions. Chemical reactions, which are happening all over the place all the time, just happened at some point to create something which had the properties that led it to replicate itself.

As it replicated itself, there became changes from yet more random chemical reactions. Some would have reacted in such a way as to cease to be life, some would have reacted in such a way as to replicate themselves more prolifically. This is the start of life, random chemical reactions. It is not about need, just chance.

"I also believe in panspermia theory."

Belief is the absence of reason, you may want to avoid it... if you're reasonable =D

It's just that, what survives and reproduces, does... And... What doesn't survive and reproduce, doesn't...

If people kill wolves because they're scary and sometimes eat their children, then those wolves won't survive and reproduce. If people look after dogs because they're friendly and play with their children, those dogs will survive and reproduce. The wolves may be stronger, but they were not as fit, evolutionarily speaking, as in they did not fit as well into their environment, i.e. an environment where humans are the apex predator.

Everyone here is aware that different people are different right? That not everyone is identical? This 'phenotype' is instructed largely by 'genotype', i.e. genes influence physique. Y'all are aware that people get genetic mutations right? Like from exposure to radiation, toxins, etc..? Well, if people with these mutations are unable to survive and reproduce, they don't, and their genes do not continue to proliferate. If they are able to survive and reproduce, then their genes do continue to proliferate. If their mutation confers an advantage in surviving and reproducing, then their genes proliferate more, relatively, and eventually they can be spread to a whole population.

"good digestion of raw foods usually involves building up the right bacteria in your stomach"

There should be no bacteria in your stomach, and very few in your small intestine. The only place there should be much bacteria is your colon. The only way you will build up bacteria in your stomach/SI is if your digestive system has failed and you're no longer producing good stomach acid..

Don't focus on your breath. Your subconscious knows how to breathe better than your conscious. Learn to meditate. When you meditate you do not have any thoughts. You are aware of things, but you do not think about them. You are aware of your breathing, but you do not think about it. Meditation is a very positive state to be in.

If you are ever feeling uncomfortable and don't know what to do about it, for example it's not something obvious like move out of the sun, drink some water, have a piss... Meditate... Don't worry. The body is very good at sorting itself out, but the brain takes a lot of energy, especially when it is stressed, and the hormones released from stress put the other functions of the body on hold. You will be amazed what discomforts will resolve themselves when you meditate. Your body will be at rest and it can carry out all its subconscious functions such as digestion, detoxification, breathing and regeneration, much more effectively.

So if you feel stressed, i.e. mentally worried/anxious; nauseous; digestive discomfort and you don't know what to do about it, meditate. Even if there is something you need to do in order to resolve your discomfort but you don't know what it is, the restful state that meditation puts you in will relax and rest your mind and enable you to think about what it is you need to do, afterwards, more effectively.

Even if you just don't know what to do some time, rather than going and finding a distraction such as TV, just meditate. You may find that something comes to you after you meditate for a bit, and if it doesn't, you need the meditation.

By the way... Meditation does not need to be in the cross-legged position with your hands in the ok symbol resting on your knees... Meditation is just: Not thinking about anything... That's it, not having any thoughts.. So just get into any comfortable position. It's good if you can do it sitting on the floor because then you can do it anywhere, but it can be more comfortable on a cushion etc... Even lying down you can do it. You will no longer be worried when you have insomnia, if you learn to meditate...

The cooking = toxicity = disease paradigm. One of the most common ideas in raw-food circles is that most diseases are due to toxemia, and that one cannot be truly healthy without discontinuing what is believed to be one of the major sources of such internal toxemia: cooked food, even if such food is unprocessed in any other respect except by heat.While it certainly appears true that many people experience (sometimes impressive) improvements when first coming to raw food, it also appears that long-time pure raw-foodists who have maintained the diet for many years are rare. Anecdotal evidence also suggests (no peer-reviewed research is available on the issue, to our knowledge) that those eating 100% raw foods do not appear to be any healthier on average than people eating predominantly raw, and that raw diets are not the only diets that may work.

Evidence, experience, and arguments addressed in this paper. The material presented here is based on (A) an extensive review of scientific literature and the logical conclusions to be drawn or inferred from it, as well as (B) personal experience with eating 100% or close to 100% raw food, and reading about many other people's experiences (since little if any scientific research is available on raw-fooders). After looking into and examining here what are, we believe, virtually all of the arguments traditionally offered from both sides for and against cooking, the conclusion we are led to is that the dangers of cooking have been largely overstated. However, at the same time, it would obviously be erroneous to say that eating raw doesn't affect our health in any way, and in fact we do believe the knowledge available indicates eating at least partially raw is important.

Subject is not black-and-white. The objective here will be to investigate one by one all of the known effects of heating on food, and examine with a critical eye all the classical raw-foodist claims about the necessity to eat raw. In particular, we'll see that some of these claims appear to be true or partially true; others wrong or very doubtful; and also presented will be some benefits of cooking in certain situations--which as we will see depend very much on the particular food in question.

The present paper is quite long, unavoidably, due to the complexity of the problem. Things are not black-and-white in this subject, contrary to what many people believe. The hope here is to at least convince the reader of the last point.

Logical sequence of paper. We will begin our look first in Part 1 with such questions as: Is cooked food toxic? What is the influence of cooking on carcinogenesis? etc. Then, in Part 2, we'll attempt to determine whether raw food is more nutritious than cooked food (what about enzymes, vitamins, etc?). Finally, in Part 3, we'll discuss the question of 100% raw diets versus "predominantly raw" diets.

"On the other hand I have weird stools (fragmented, hard as a rock, and unusually black like I have never had before)."

I think that's due to the probiotics breaking down your stool more than your normal gut bacteria.

Regarding all the different advice on paleo and not knowing what to follow, I think it's best to be balanced. You say you want a simple rigid diet to follow, but I do not think that is good in the long term. Try different people's advice, but don't be rigid with it. Try something for a week, see how it goes, but even if it works you should still add some variety now and again for hormesis at least, but maybe even to prevent some deficiency or overdose you didn't anticipate.

Regarding potatoes, you'll get rid of most of the toxins by peeling them, but even so you could afford to leave them on sometimes.

Nuts, you can reduce the anti-nutrients by soaking them in salt-water; and further by roasting them, though this may make them less beneficial due to oxidation of the fats.

There are benefits to raw foods; benefits to cooked foods; benefits to starch; benefits to very low carb; benefits to higher carb; benefits to fruits and salad; to dark leafy greens and to dairy. All of these also have negatives. The best thing is to try a bit of everything, and stick mostly to whatever makes you feel good including in the short term(taste), but still try new(and old) things now and again, to see if you have more desire for them; to maintain the ability to process them; and to reduce the risk of deficiencies.

It's very important to find the proper, health-oriented traditional ways of preparing various foods. Potatoes and crucifers should always be cooked; whilst dairy should always be raw. Other things are in between, such as organs and meat/fat which can be eaten raw/blue rare or rare, or alternatively slow-cooked, depending on what your taste is and what the cut is.

The specialty and focus of this forum is in/on raw foods specifically, just so you know.

"It essentially brings oxygen into your gut and lets the aerobic bacteria live while killing the anaerobic ones."

Your small intestine is meant to have as few bacteria in it as possible, and they are meant to be mostly anaerobic. The only aerobic bacteria are meant to be in the duodenum and proximal jejunum, and in very small numbers. The colon is meant to contain only anaerobic bacteria. I always thought that the reason for favouring aerobic bacteria on aged-meat was specifically so that they would not survive in the gut, and to avoid specific harmful anaerobic bacteria such as Clostridium botulinum.

Where do you bowhunt deer, Miles? I thought bowhunting was illegal in the UK, and throughout most of Europe.

Wow, are you suggesting you can run fast enough to catch up with a herd of deer? I also hunt, and this statement sounds a bit on the fanciful side to me.

I'm not going to tell you where I've bow-hunted deer, but the only countries I've spent much time in since I was a child are England and Sweden. Bow-hunting is legal in several European countries: Denmark; Spain; Italy; Bulgaria; Macedonia; and more which I don't recall.

And yes, I did run fast enough to catch up with a herd of deer. I chased them into a gap in a fence on top of a wall, and they had to jump through it one by one, about 15 of them, and I got one of the last ones =) I actually tried sprinting straight after the deer in the open before this and I was not far behind them actually... I chased them down hill. I spent several hours stalking them across plains, hills and dales; sometimes walking; running; or sprinting, before I got it right. I could have easily got these deer with my bow when I came across them grazing in a field, but there was too much chance of being seen as it was open country(so I didn't even have my bow with me), and I did not want people to see me with a bow for some reason.

Lol there is a wave of ZCers posting just now. As I've said to them: If you're going to eat ZC, please keep a journal of your experiences good and bad, so that others can learn from them. I recommend that you eat a small amount of plants to keep your relevant gut-bacteria ticking over, but as long as you share all your experiences here, then even if you end up in a bad shape at least others can learn from it.

How long have you been zero carb for? Please share your future experiences with the forum, good and bad, so others can learn from them. I ate zero carb and felt good at first, but gradually deteriorated and ended up with a lot of problems stemming from it which took time to recover from... Humans are omnivores and have always eaten a mix of plants and animals when they can. Humans don't produce vitamin C, and we have a large colon which is vulnerable to infection if we do not support our good bacteria which live off of fiber. It's just not worth it eating ZC... If you feel best eating only animal foods - first, I'd recommend you eat plenty of organs and enough fat as a percentage of energy, but also that you still eat some vegetables each day.. Just a small amount even, just to keep your gut-bacteria ticking over, and to keep getting a small amount of vitamin c and minerals.

Also, it might be less irritating to your gut to obtain your carbs from gluconeogenesis, but it's stressful on the body to do that, and you could find that your digestion gets weaker over time as I did. Therefore it might be good to consume a small amount of carbs each day to stop your body from having to obtain them from protein. Even if your body is running on ketones for most of its energy, you still need carbs to make glyco-proteins and such(1).

Of course, as you've found so far, you can go for some time ZC feeling great, and so maybe you would be best eating miniscule amounts of plants/carbs for now(just enough to keep your gut bacteria alive) to allow your gut to heal, and then gradually building up to a maintenance level of absorbable carbs(starch/sucrose/glucose/fructose 30g/day minimum? guess) and fibre(10g/day? - guess).

I've bow-hunted deer, and the default way of doing this is to get to a lake before dawn/dusk and camp there waiting for the deer to come past for their twice-daily drink of water, which they take as they're moving between their eating-place and their sleeping-place. There's always deer poo around lakes in deer country. I've also hunted deer by running after a herd and spearing them, or by just coming across them by luck hiding in some bushes when I'm out with my bow. If you don't look directly at them you can get closer to them before they run away; because they think you haven't seen them... Same when I ran after them, if I walked at an angle to the herd and didn't look at them, I could get closer before I had to sprint...

Taurine:"Robert Backus DVM, PHD of the Dept. of BioSciences of the University of California agreed with Dr. Hassan PHD microbiology (North California)in that taurine can be heated in hydrochloric acid up to 110 o C (262 oF) for 24 hours without substantial destruction. This was what author, Ann Martin (Protect Your Pet) found out when she sent her questions out to these biologists. "http://www.msdivine.net/felinebeauty/taurine.php (Best source I could find on this... No studies available on pubmed etc..)

Eric. Yes, she should have numbered the references and linked them to the text. That would've made the article easier to use.

Poncho, in regard to that video: How do you know it's because of the raw food, and not because of other lifestyle aspects including the variety, quality and freshness of her food? It is fair to consider that the raw aspect might be important, but you do not know. Maybe the raw aspect does have advantages but simultaneous disadvantages.

Do you think their cooked counterparts are putting so much more thought into having the perfect macro-ratios etc? Why is it so much more important for the raw dieters, unless raw food is less nutritious?

Poncho you sound like a religious zealot. How long have you been eating raw paleo; how much evidence have you seen? You are asserting things you cannot possibly know. Go ahead and experiment with your body and research 'alternative' therapies, you will get further than following anything your doctor is likely to suggest, but do not kid yourself that you know things which you do not. For all you know things might start going wrong down the line, and if you cling to faith and beliefs things are going to get much worse than if you just evaluated things rationally. Perhaps things won't 'go wrong', but they just won't go as well as they could have done. It's important to have people who are willing to try things out, like Raw Paleo, so that others have information to evaluate; but you should know that it is an experiment, that you are in poorly charted territory.

Just because the mainstream is ignorant and corrupt, and has things wrong; and x people can see that, it doesn't mean x people have things right either. When most people are ignorant regarding health, it is left to small groups of individuals to research and theorise based on scarce information and experiment on themselves. People only have so much time to try so many things, and if people find something which makes them feel better than before they're likely to be happy to stick with it. That doesn't mean it's the ultimate therapy. Desperate people are easier to please...

There's no such thing as 'intellectual property'. The acquisition of ideas does not deprive the originator of them, so it cannot be theft; and to hold rights over ideas is to violate other people's rights over their own tangible property.

The reason that you should pay people for their ideas, is so that they and others will be motivated to generate further ideas. If you don't value someone's work, don't pay them, and they won't make any more; and others will be less motivated to foray into that field.

If you value someone's ideas however, and want to see them generate more; and for others to be motivated to enter the fray, then pay them proportionately to how much you value their contributions.